Alexander Leslie (engineer)
# Alexander Leslie (engineer)

Alexander Leslie FRSE PRSSA (16 September 1844 – 7 December 1893) was a Scottish civil engineer. He served as President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts from 1890 until his premature death in 1893. He specialised in harbour works and reservoirs.

## Life

He was born in Dundee on 16 September 1844 the son of the civil engineer James Leslie and his wife Jane Hunter (1804-1887).

He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution (now Stewarts Melville) then studied mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. In 1862 he joined the offices of David and Thomas Stevenson as a trainee lighthouse and harbour engineer. He worked here for three years and his projects included a new breakwater at Wick. He then briefly gained extra experience as a land surveyor with a Mr Macbey of Elgin before joining the firm of Morkle & Prodham working on the Blaydon and Conside Railway. From 1865 he was also partially employed in his father's office, and in 1871 he was created a Partner, and came to aid his father in several projects, the firm thereafter being called J & A Leslie.

In 1882 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposers being Thomas Stevenson and Peter Guthrie Tait.

In 1881, prior to his father's death (in 1889) a further partnership was created with his brother-in-law, Robert Carstairs Reid (1845–1894), to create Leslie & Reid. Robert had earlier been a school friend and probably through this connection met his sister, Charlotte Leslie (1846–1935). On Reid's death he took on William Archer Porter Tait.

He died on 7 December 1893 aged 49. He is buried with his parents in Dean Cemetery.

## Projects

* Alnwickhill Reservoir (1875) plus second phase in 1888
* Water Tower in Dalkeith (1879)
* Gladhouse Reservoir (1879)
* Edgelaw Reservoir (1880)
* Rosebery Reservoir (1880)
* Paisley water supply (1881)
* Williamwath Bridge, Dumfriesshire (1882)
* Reservoir on the Gask Burn in Perthshire (1887)
* Alnwickhill Reservoir (1888) created a listed building in 1996
* Reservoir serving Leven in Fife (1889)

## Family

He was married to Mary Marjoribanks (1845–1912).

His great uncle was the eminent mathematician John Leslie.

